AN ARTIFICIAL NEST-SITE FOR ARCTIC NESTING COMMON EIDERS

Artificial structures were placed on a barrier island in arctic Alaska to provide nesting cover for Common Elders (Somateria mollissima). Wo oden cross-like nest sites, providing four quadrants with 20-cm high a nd 61-cm long boards on two sides of each quadrant, were occupied by n esting elders. Previous research had shown that sites based on the des ign developed for the eastern Atlantic subspecies (S. m. dressen) were not used by the arctic Alaska subspecies (S. m. v-nigra) perhaps due to different predation pressures in the two regions.